Tiivistelmä

This doctoral study conducts an empirical analysis of the impact of Word-of-Mouth
(WOM) on marketing-relevant outcomes such as attitudes and consumer choice, during
a high-involvement and complex service decision. Due to its importance to decisionmaking,
WOM has attracted interest from academia and practitioners for decades.
Consumers are known to discuss products and services with one another. These
discussions help consumers to form an evaluative opinion, as WOM reduces perceived
risk, simplifies complexity, and increases the confidence of consumers in decisionmaking.
These discussions are also highly impactful as WOM is a trustworthy source of
information, since it is independent from the company or brand.
In responding to the calls for more research on what happens after WOM information is
received, and how it affects marketing-relevant outcomes, this dissertation extends prior
WOM literature by investigating how consumers process information in a highinvolvement
service domain, in particular higher-education. Further, the dissertation
studies how the form of WOM influences consumer choice. The research contributes to
WOM and services marketing literature by developing and empirically testing a
framework for information processing and studying the long-term effects of WOM.
The results of the dissertation are presented in five research publications. The
publications are based on longitudinal data. The research leads to the development of a
proposed theoretical framework for the processing of WOM, based on theories from
social psychology. The framework is specifically focused on service decisions, as it
takes into account evaluation difficulty through the complex nature of choice criteria
associated with service purchase decisions. Further, other gaps in current WOM
literature are taken into account by, for example, examining how the source of WOM
and service values affects the processing mechanism.
The research also provides implications for managers aiming to trigger favorable WOM
through marketing efforts, such as advertising and testimonials. The results provide
suggestions on how to design these marketing efforts by taking into account the
mechanism through which information is processed, or the form of social influence.